SamadhiMuse

                                                11 p.m.
                                                11 Mar 85
                                                Monday
      Dear Kathy,
           I'm back at my place after the weekend down south.
      Walking into these rooms tonight gave me such an ache.  I wrote
      a poem (enclosed) to deal with the feelings.  I'm listening to
      George Winston and thinking about you.
           When I saw you for those brief months after I came back
      from Canada I was impressed (and worried) at the changes in
      you.  Now, after two more years, I'm just impressed, not
      worried.  But, you know, even back seven years ago, in 78/79,
      you used to give me this same ache inside.  I've seen so much
      and done so much since then that I should have long since
      outgrown the days when you could get to my emotions.  But I
      haven't.  As I grow, you grow.
           I don't know quite what it is you do to me or why.
      Sometimes I think you were intended to be my mate in this life
      and, if I'd have stayed in Long Beach instead of joining the
      service, we'd have connected.  Other times I think it must be
      something binding us together from past lives.  Both of us
      Irish.  Perhaps we've lived together before and loved each
      other deeply.
           I look at you and I see so much I like.  And I wonder how
      it is that you are so inaccessible to me.  ...and my fantasies
      run away with me.  I thought a lot about you this weekend.
           This life is so beautiful.  I would rather have these
      aches and bursts of sunlite love and parting than not to feel.
      I want to kneel before the experiences of my life and cup them
      to my lips and drink them, with passion.
           And you, dear sister, lover of mine.  I would drink much
      of you.  If....  And what this IF is, I don't know. But it
      keeps me on the edges of your life.  Tasting an ache I cannot
      name.
           It's not 'love'.  Or, rather, it's not 'just' love.  I've
      loved before and I will again.  It's more a deep sense of both
      recognition and loss at the same time.
           I wish you were here, now, and could tell me what you
      think of these things.
           But, I should be considerate of you.  By the time this
      reaches you, you will be deep into the process of sorting out
      what you're going to do with your marriage and Tim.  I doubt an
      impassioned note from me will be of much aid.  But, dear lady,
      I'm not writing this to give you a burden...nor to provoke a
      reply.  I'm writing to unburden myself of some of these
      feelings ... to you, for you ... a gift.  A sharing.  You're
      the only one I would care to have understand my feelings.  And
      I want to share them with you but I don't want to burden you.
           What do I want?  I want to have you in my life.  I had
      almost forgotten your magic ... and now I remember so clear.
      And, of you, what do I want?  I have no right to say, nor have
      I been asked but....
           I want you to press on without cigarettes.  Find a very
      deep self-love and respect for your divinity (for Christ
      potentially lives in each of us) and realize your body is the
      temple within which you worship him.
           I want you to continue to grow.  Grow outside of society's
      structures (marriage).  Grow outside of other people's
      structures and insecurities (Tim's confining your freedom to
      express love).  Continue to go where the going gets hard.  It's
      there that the knife edges of your life and growth get
      sharpened.
           Allow yourself to know God is there and cares for you
      through everything.  He shares every ache, regret, passion and
      charity that passes through your heart and he loves you,
      absolutely, through it all.  If you could learn to do the same
      you would be so much closer to God.
           Know, too, that there are others in this life scattered
      through the years of your life.  People, like me, who will love
      you and applaud you and your efforts to grow and free
      yourself.  That will lend love and compassion freely to another
      soul who dares to try to find more in this life than marriage,
      television and possessions.
           But, most of all I want you to know that you have the
      ability to find the secret of inner joy that freedom brings in
      this life.  All of what I've said, above, about God and love
      and courage and friends is part of it.
           Do NOT settle for less.
           I will get the poems and pictures together soon.  I will
      also probably wait a week or so and then call you.
           Enclosed, you will find the patio shot we talked about and
      a picture of Chris.  Look at him a moment and you will see how
      much I love him.
                                       Love,

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —